DIY Printer Ink Cartridge Refill Options

If you're a modern computer user, you've undoubtedly wondered whether some of those inkjet cartridge refill programs are a bargain or a scam. A. Lizard examines the various options for keeping those old cartridges out of the landfill and possibly saving a few pennies along the way.

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The tradeoff for inkjet printing has always been the cost of the printer
versus the total cost of ownership. Buy a sub–$50 printer, and replacing
the cartridges will probably cost even more than the printer did—over and
over. And all those cartridges ordinarily wind up in landfills. But there are
alternatives:

Pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for a laser printer.

Refill the cartridges yourself.

Have your cartridges refilled by a third party.

Do It Yourself?

You may get the best results with printer cartridges like the midrange and
high-end Canon models have, which are simple ink tanks and don't
have the print head built in. One-shot print heads aren't designed to last
forever.

These kits aren't for everybody. Some people need fairly precise vendor
ink matching. Photo printing, for instance, is one area in which small
differences can become big ones. If you don't deal well with tools,
don't like to follow instructions to the letter, and are really afraid of
making a mess, you don't want one of these kits.

The procedure seems relatively simple:

Drill a hole where the diagram says to put it.

Through the hole, pump in the amount of ink that the instructions specify,
using the included syringe.

Do anything else specified in the instructions.

Printer ink refill kits aren't difficult to use, and you can get good
results with them. Break the plastic button off the provided hand drill/gimlet
and chuck it into a drill (low speed) or cordless screwdriver.

TIP

Try plugging the hole after refilling. I believe that these kits only work
two or three times per cartridge when used as directed because the ink residue
covering the inside of the plastic bag found in most cartridges dries out, due
to the open hole usually left after the refill process.

A few extra suggestions for refilling a cartridge:

Put down newspaper before you get started.

Make sure that you're following the instructions for the right
cartridge.

Don't overfill.

Unless the instructions say otherwise, immediately after refilling you
should clean the syringe used to inject the ink. Fill the syringe with warm
water and spray the water out of the syringe nozzle. Repeat if necessary.